Article: Composting Using Black Soldier Flies & Worm Bins

Hello Everyone!

Here is the link for a article that  covers Composting Using Black Soldier Flies and Worm Bins.  This article was published on Edthatmatters.com

Next I will be covering Fall Gardening for Homesteaders and more!

Enjoy!
Troy Brooks
http://www.myheirloomseeds.com

Eat 8 Vegetables To Lower Blood Pressure

Beets, leafy greens and other vegetables are high in nitrate and "may" help lower blood pressure naturally.  They do so by relaxing your blood vessels and improving circulation.

As a Certified Master Herbalist I recommend eating these plants RAW if you can as you will preserve the vitamin and mineral content which is often depleted or reduced when heat is applied in the form of cooking.

You can also juice some of the like beets, spinach, celery and kale.

Here's the list:

Many of these seeds are included in our Heirloom Seeds Packages and can be purchased directly from our website.  Several of them can even be grown indoors all year long as they are shade tolerant plants.

Kitchen Scraps That will Grow In Your Garden

Here is our list of 12 simple plants that will regrow from your kitchen scraps:

Fennel, Cabbage, Scallions, Leeks, Garlic, Bok Choy, Celery, Romaine Lettuce, Sweet Potatoes, Pineapple, Ginger and Lemongrass:

Have you planted your Heirloom Seed Garden this year?  There are so many Heirloom Seeds which you can plant all year long, even indoors.    We look forward to being your new source for Heirloom Seeds and of course our Mother Nature Proof Survival Seed Capsule. 

Hello fellow Gardners!

If you're into Square Foot Gardening here is a simple tool (chart) that you can use to help you plant that beautiful garden.  For example this chart takes the guess work out of many heirloom green peppers, tomatoes, egg plant, squash, cucumbers etc to plant.  Now you just have to figure out the benefits of companion gardening as well.   Much Success!

Planting in Plastic Bottles

Planting in plastic bottles just makes sense.  Plastic bottles are space savers.  You can hang them and we even show you how to in the picture below:

You can plant flowers, vegetables such as lettuce, onions, radishes etc., like the ones in the below picture:

As you can see we are using pop/soda bottles and water bottles.  Instead of throwing them out why not grow something delicious inside of them?

You can even use milk jugs to garden in.  It's about imagination and creativity.  Run a wooden stick through the handles and hang the entire set-up somewhere and make a dull location become full of life and beauty.

Fresh Organic Heirloom Garden Salad

Summertime is here and and what a wonderful time to eat fresh salads that are grown from your Heirloom Seeds and guess what?  You don't need to be a Vegetarian to enjoy such delicious and nutritious food.

Here is a delicious salad recipe:

Fresh young coconut strips, avacodos, tomato, cucumber, onion, garlic, lemon, oregano, cilantro, dash of olive oil and Himalayan salt!

 Bon appetite.

Lettuce in a Bottle

Self explanatory:  Lettuce in a bottle.

We advocate recycling and using these materials to grow your own food. It is so simple to cut water bottles (that don't contain BPA) in them and reuse them for growing food. 

The above picture demonstrates how just how easy it is to grow something as simple as lettuce in container.  Just call it container gardening!

You can do this in limited spaces, even on balconies and apartments.  What do you think about this idea?  Are you already doing it or know of someone who is doing container gardening?

Don't be scared to get your hands dirty!

Homemade Mosquito Trap

Here is a easy and affordable mosquito trap that anyone can made at home!

Materials:

1 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 gram of yeast (1/7th typical packet)
2-liter plastic bottle

Directions:

1. Cut the plastic bottle in half.
2. Mix brown sugar with hot water. Let cool. When cold, pour in the bottom half of the bottle.
3. Add the yeast. No need to mix. It creates carbon dioxide, which attracts mosquitoes.
4. Place the funnel part, upside down, into the other half of the bottle, taping them together if desired.
5. Wrap the bottle with something black, leaving the top uncovered, and place it outside in an area away from your normal gathering area. (Mosquitoes are also drawn to the color black.)

Change the solution every 2 weeks for continuous control and of course empty out all of those dead mosquitos trapped at the bottom of the bottle.

Let us know how you're turned out!

Pallet Gardening: For those living in apartments or small spaces

Pallet Gardening

Just because you might be living in an apartment doesn't mean you still can't grown a decent "Small Space Garden". If fact quite the opposite in my opinion.

Sure viable planting space may be a challenge, but it's not reason why you or anyone else for that matter can't have some type of garden even on your balcony if you have one.  Using pallets is so convenient and affordable.

Most pallets will fit perfectly on most people's balconies.  They don't require much space and you can grow many types of herbs and even add flowers to brighten up your living space.  

For this project, you’ll need the pallet you found, 2 large bags of potting soil, tube of plastic, and two six packs per opening on the top of the completed pallet garden), a small roll of landscape fabric, a staple gun, staples, and sand paper.

Staple down the landscape fabric your staple gun.  You only need to staple the back and both sides leaving the front opened.

This part can become a little messy.  However, open up your potting soil and fill the pallet with it.  Leave a little space so you can add your plants.  You'll do this with the pallet laying down.  Here you can add any type of plants or even flowers.  When you’re done planting, you should have plants that are completely covering every opening (i.e. there shouldn’t be any place for soil to fall out). There should also be soil firmly pushed into every part of the pallet where there aren’t plants.

Pallet gardening is an excellent way to grow herbs as well. 

Caring For your Pallet

Now, I’m going to tell you what you should do as well.  Leave the pallet flat on the ground for a couple of weeks (watering when needed) this will allow the roots of your plants to start to grow in and hold all the plants in place.

After a couple of weeks the roots will allow the soil to stick in place somewhat.  When watering in this process, tilt the pallet a little and water away. 

Use your imagination and let us know how yours pallet garden project turns out.  We would love to post your pictures.

Happy gardening!

Celery Vinegar Recipe: 7 Powerful Benefits of Celery

Here is a very simple, yet powerful recipe for Celery Vinegar:

Combine 1/4 lb. Celery seed or 1 qt fresh celery chopped fine.  1 qt. vinegar. 1 T. Salt, and 1 T sugar. Put celery in jar; heat the vinegar, sugar, an salt an pour in boiling hot over celery.  Cool, cover tightly, and set away. After 2 weeks, strain and bottle.

Celery is often referred to as the  "negative calorie food" but it certainly isn't lacking in nutrition. 

Whether you're garden as a hobby or you're a survivalist/prepper you want to have this heirloom vegetable in your garden.  Here are several reasons why:


Immune System
The high amounts of vitamin C in celery promote a healthy immune system.

Blood Pressure
Celery contains pthalides, which have been shown to lower blood pressure by relaxing the muscles around the arteries and allowing vessels to dilate. The calcium, magnesium, and potassium in celery also helps regulate blood pressure.  Yes, Calcium helps to regulate blood pressure.

Inflammation
Celery is believed to have anti-inflammatory properties, which may help with ailments attributed to inflammation such as arthritis.
 

Cholesterol
The pthalides in celery may also lower cholesterol by increasing bile acid secretion.


Diuretic Celery has been used as a diuretic for centuries. Its diuretic effect comes from its balance of potassium and sodium which helps to flush out excess fluid from the body.

Cancer
Celery contains coumarins which have been shown to be effective in the prevention of cancer.


 

Green Onion: How to save it & grow it in a cup

Green Onions

Cut off what you need for your recipe, dinner, etc then toss the bulbs into a glass with a bit of water. They’ll begin to grow and give you new green onions to use.
If you like this idea, you’ll want to get this book.

Dill Vinegar: For Digestive Problems

How to make Dill Vinegar:

Dill Vinegar.  Crush 1/2t. dill seeds, then soak in 1 pt. cider vinegar for 2-3 weeks. Strain and it's done.  Excellent for digestive problems.  Take 1t before or after each meal.

How to save Heirloom Seeds (Dill)

How to save Heirloom Dill Seeds:

To harvest dill seeds, You'll need to cut the plants BEFORE the seed heads turns dark brown, because after that the Heirloom Dill seeds will begin to fall to the ground.

If you can harvest our Heirloom Dill Seeds on a dry summer day.  Tie in bunches an hang in a airy but shay place.  Have something underneath the Dill Seeds to catch the seeds that drop or just lay them on a clean paper.  when the heads are dry, shell off the seeds and store in a covered glass jar or fold up stalks and all in your paper (they'll keep fine).  One school of thought says the Dill seeds are better dried off the head; I can't tell the difference.  You can also freeze dill or grow it in a kitchen pot through the winter.

Natural Flu Remedy Protocol

Flu Protocol

At the first sign of a flu (sneezing, elevated temperature, muscle and joint aches, coughing, etc.) this is what I do.

I spray my nose with colloidal silver (10ppm.) I do this often and continue until I am well. I also take colloidal silver internally. I find sipping as much as I can at the beginning often stops the process. I cannot, by law, prescribe amounts, but you can do a little research and decide on what level is good for you. I use 10ppm.

How does the silver work? Scientists tell us, after close observation of live blood, that the silver particles are attracted to ALL single celled organisms. They go right for the nucleus and attach themselves. About thirty seconds later the organism dies. It is important to note that we have good bacteria in our mouths, gut, etc. so taking colloidal everyday, all the time is probably not a good idea.

This next remedy might not sound very high tech or exciting, but, believe me, it is powerful.

I make a broth and freeze it. You will not feel like gathering the ingredients and cooking the broth when you are sick.

In a gallon of distilled water:  (use organic vegetables if possible)

    1.8-10-cloves of garlic, chopped

    2. 2-3 yellow onions, chopped

    3. 5-7 carrots, chopped

    4. 5-7 stalks of celery

    5. a handful of parsley  

    6. 2-3 inches of ginger root, chopped

    7. cayenne pepper to toleration

    8. sea salt or “real” salt

    9. about a teaspoon of curry, more if you want it

I bring this broth to a boil, then simmer for about forty-five minutes. I keep some of the broth with the solids and some I strain.

When you are really feeling poorly, the strained broth will be the best. It will hydrate you and deliver essential medicines to your body. There are many healing components in this mix, too many to list. Garlic, alone, would take up a page.  

As you begin to feel better and gain an appetite, the broth with the solids will continue the healing work.

I also take extra vitamin C, and Echinacea extract.

Often the respiratory system is deeply compromised. For the nose, I spray the colloidal silver. Sometimes I irrigate with a mild sea salt dilution (Neti pot, or small blue bulb.) If my throat is raw, I gargle deeply with a one-to one mixture of hydrogen peroxide and warm water. Never gargle with straight peroxide as it may burn your tissue.

If the lungs are congested, tea tree oils inhales are very helpful. I put two-three drops in a mug, pour rapidly boiling water to the top, cup my hands around, sniff, then deeply inhale until all of the steam is gone. Pour the mixture down the drain…NEVER ingest tea tree oil.

If your fever is too high, a warm wash cloth placed along the spine can bring it down. However, virus can be killed by heat. It is the body’s natural response to any viral invasion, so a fever can actually assist the healing process if it isn’t too high for too long.

White Willow Bark is aspirin in its original, natural form. It doesn’t produce the contraindications of the pharmaceutical copy. I take it for any aches and pains that accompany the “flu.”

Remember the old advice about drinking a lot of liquids…still holds true. I use the broth as much as I can.
 
If what we are told is true, that this “flu” will be back in the fall, then now is the time to organize your remedies.

Please note, there are other natural remedies out there that people use and swear by. By all means, do what works for you. This protocol is what I find works best for me and I hope it has given you some direction.

Good Health to all. 

How to Save Heirloom Celery Seeds

Learn how to save Heirloom Celery Seeds:

Celery is self-fertile, inspect-pollinated biennial.  It will cross with celeria or other celeries.  In cold zones, choose your plants in the fall.  Dig them out being careful not to harm the roots.  Replant them in dirt in something you can keep in a root cellar, the above-ground part mulched with straw.

Replant in spring after last frost; trim rotted prats.  In warm zones, plant for seed in July and transplant in January.  Set out 2 feet apart because second-year growth get high an wide.  Later come tiny white blooms; still later, brown seeds. 

To avoid loss on the ground, shake the top heads (which mature seed first) into a bag once in a while.  Cut and dry on cloth or paper.

275,000 Heirloom Seeds Gardening 2013

This is what 275,000 Heirloom Seeds looks like:

In the box Heirloom Seeds as well as ancestral varieties that date back to the 15th Century.  Thinking about getting starter with Heirloom Seed?  We have a new Heirloom Seed Combo Pack for $9.97.

Getting ready for 2013 Gardening.  Order your Heirloom Seeds TODAY!

Heirloom Pickled Onion Recipe

Non GMO Heirloom Pickled Onions Recipe (Red or White Onions)

Main Ingredients

 1 lb red or white Heirloom Onions  (about 2 med or 1 large), thinly sliced
 1/2 cup sugar
 1 1/2 cups white vinegar
   
Spices

1/2 Cinnamon stick
1 Star Anise
1 Bay Leaf
5 cloves
1 Star anise
Dash red pepper flakes

Optional spices- Fresh ginger slices, oregano, garlic, cumin seeds, mustard seeds

Putting it together:

1 Blanch red onions in a saucepan of boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain in colander.

2 While the water is heating in step 1, in a separate saucepan combine the vinegar, sugar and spices. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

3 Add blanched, drained onions to the vinegar mixture. Simmer for 1 minute.

4 Transfer to a glass jar. Allow to stand until cooled. Will keep several weeks refrigerated.

Yield: Makes 1 1/2 pints.

How to Save Heriloom Onion Seeds: Survivalist, Preppers, Homesteaders

How to Save Onion Heirloom Seeds:

Onions produce seed by putting up one slender stalk that flowers and then makes seed.  If you want your onions to keep putting their energy into making bulbs rather than diverting it to making seed just snap the flower stems off when they start to make flowers.  

Onion pollen carried by insects; you can't have pure breed seed unless you grown only one kind have only one kind flowering at a time, or keep your different kinds quite separate.  On the other hand, if they do cross, the results will be edible and may have hybrid vigor! 

Onion are biennial if you're going from seed to set and then from set to bulb.  You save good bulbs from the plants you choose to be parents (your sets) and set them out the next spring.  To keep seed-making plants from losing your onion seed by scattering before it is ripe on the plant, fasten a paper bag over the seed head with a rubber band.  Then you can harvest seed, bag and all, when you're ready. But first give the insects a chance to do their job completely.  Or you can gather your onion seed a little earlier and finish drying on a newspaper.
  
Onion seeds will last for years if well dried and sealed in glass where humidity can't get at them, but they will die in just a few months if you have them in a warm humid place.  Getting them too dry by artificial heating will kill them too.  They are one of the shortest-lived seed unless conditions are just right.

How To Germinate Heirloom Seeds Indoors

How To Germinate Heirloom Seeds 

Step #1:

We first start our Heirloom seeds using egg cartons.  So if you've been throwing them away, now you have a reason to keep them.  You can add a little dirt in the tray BEFORE placing the seed inside.  We personally put approximately 2 or 3 Heirloom seeds per hole in the egg carton tray.  However you can place as many seeds as you would like to grow.  Below is a picture of step #1.  Our Heirloom Seeds have a high germination rate because they are sold fresh.

Step #2
After adding our Heirloom Seeds fill in the rest of the holes with dirt.  Then add a label to the carton with the contents of the tray.

Step # 3

Once we've have added the dirt we then plastic wrap to the egg cartons to create a mini green house effect. You don't have to use this method but we've had excellent results from this method.  You then apply several holes to let air circulate in and out of the egg carton. 

Step #4

You then place your eggs carton out in the sun (weather permitting) or you can place them in a room were the temperature is at least 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  Your seeds should start germinating in about 7-10 days depending on the type of seeds you are planting.

Here is a tip:

You can increase the success in terms of high germination by soaking your seeds for 2-4 hours before planting.  Some seeds like peas, green beans, string beans will greatly benefit from this.  If you want to increase the effectiveness of this soak them in our Bloomin Minerals as before planting instead of plain old water.  The Bloomin Minerals will make have a positive effect on your yield of your garden and you will be the envy of your neighbors.  Turn your "Black Thumb" into a "Green thumb" with Bloomin Minerals.

How to Save Heirloom Turnip Seeds:

Turnips-Are bee pollinated, self-incompatible, biennial roots that easily cross with many other bassicas; turnip, radish, rape, mustard, rutabaga, Chinese cabbage, and wild  varieties of turnip and mustard. 

You're safe from crossing only if your seed bearers are not within 1/4 mile of any of those related plants while both are flowering.  But the problem the first year is to get the parent plant through the winter.  In the coldest zones, dig and store the root, and then replant the next spring. 

In warmer areas mulch and leave in the garden.  Allow 18 inches between seeding plants.  After seed pod become yellow, cut the stalks and manage like cabbage.

Turnip seed is very strong; with care it should keep it's germinating power for 5 years or more.

We invite you to order our Non-GMO Heirloom Seeds TODAY.  Get your 15,000+ Heirloom Seeds Package specifically designed for those Preppers, Survivalist, Garden Enthusiast and of course people like us i.e. your down to earth Homesteaders.